“Over the past decade, past experience has shown that the more sanctions the international community places on Pyongyang, the more Pyongyang is motivated to respond defiantly. The longer the stalemate drags on, the more fissile material North Korea will produce, and the better weapons it will make. The North can also sell its fissile materials to anyone in the world seeking to buy it.”

“The heart and soul of Syrian society for a century predominantly has been neither sectarian nor religious. But in the face of state collapse and widespread insecurity at family level, Syrians will naturally turn to sect and faith if that is their key to survival. If the fighting and destruction continue for a long time in Syria, sect and faith will reshape the new country that emerges, probably laying a foundation for long-term tensions that provide structural entry points for others in the region to interfere in domestic affairs.”

“After the Supreme Court hears oral argument in the two same-sex marriage cases next week, it could issue a momentous ruling that gay marriage is a constitutional right in all 50 states — or that it is not. But, the Court has left itself numerous more modest options to avoid such a sweeping ruling when it decides whether the California can outlaw same-sex marriage through a voter initiative or whether Congress can define ‘marriage’ for all federal programs as “only a legal union between one man and one woman.”

“President Obama’s trip to the Middle East last week served as a nagging reminder of the world’s most intractable problems: the Palestinian conflict, Iran, North Korea. These are geographically distant but historically persistent threats to the United States. With meteors landing unexpectedly from the sky, the entire earth suddenly feels like one big bulls-eye of doom.”

“When Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs coined the term 12 years ago, many expected that economic growth rates in India and Brazil would soon rival China’s. That remains O’Neill’s bet, his most recent blast foreseeing that “India definitely has the biggest potential for growth among BRIC countries this decade.” But the brute fact is that China has continued growing more than twice as fast as other members of this club.”

“Science and technology are being increasingly recognized as central features in international diplomacy. Much of the attention, however, has focused on how major industrialized countries and large emerging nations such as China, India, and Brazil use science and technology to advance their global competitiveness.”

“The recovery is now in earnest for those still without power, for public transportation systems that closed during the height of the snowstorm, and for families who left their homes to seek shelter. But the great nor’easter of 2013 isn’t over. We will rebound, but, if we are lucky, this storm will never end.”